How to TRACK Your Period

Knowing how to calculate your next period date can minimize the anticipation of wondering when in the world your period is going to come. Calculating your next period date can also help you avoid unwanted stained knickers or sheets. Learning how to track your period will help you prepare for your period so you’re never caught off guard by a period surprise.

Figuring out how to track your period is super easy. Here’s how.

The first step is to figure out how many days are in your average cycle. (It’s totally normal for your cycle to be a few days shorter or longer from month to month. That’s why we’re talking average cycle.

To calculate your period, you’ll need to count the days in between your last few periods. (Be sure to mark the days in your calendar so that you remember which day your period started each month. You can just use a star or a big letter ‘P’ if you don’t want other people knowing when you got your period.)

Start counting on the first day of your period and stop counting on the day before your next period. This is the number of days in one menstrual cycle. Do this for a few cycles. Add up the total number of days and then divide them by the number of cycles. That will give you the average number of days in your menstrual cycle. Once you know how many days are in your cycle, it’s super easy to track your period.

Start on the first day of your last period and count out the number of days in your average cycle that you calculated above. That’s the estimated start date of your next period.

The typical menstrual cycle is 28 days. This means that you’ll get your period just about every 28 days. In reality, that 28 number actually varies from girl to girl, woman to woman. But anywhere between 21 and 35 days is normal.

Your period may be a little irregular when you first start menstruating. That’s normal. It can take your body a while to adjust to this whole new period thing. But your cycle will typically normalize within a year.

Wish there were a way to track your period without all the counting and maths? There are a bunch of period calendar apps and websites that will do this for you. All you have to do is insert when your period started and ended each month, and the app does the rest. You can also use the period calculator on our website: https://www.always.co.uk/en-gb/period-calculator